


Merge

by VioletArrows



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Action/Adventure, Blackrock Chronicles, Body Horror, Demonic Possession, F/M, Gen, Sharing a Body, okay I lied let's pick on Rythian some more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 05:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletArrows/pseuds/VioletArrows
Summary: There must always be a Lich Ki-... Ender dragon. Rythian thinks he knows all about Ender magic, but the Queen of The End invented it. And there's a heavy price for trying to break The End's curse.This takes place well after BlackRock Chronicles ended, and would be the start of a 'final chapter' of sorts.Yes, it ends on a cliffhanger. No, there isn't any more. I just wanted it.





	Merge

“_Choose! NOW!_” The Queen of The End screeched over Rythian. The Ender dragon’s breath and glowing blood were hot enough to make the stone underneath them distort, and the steam scald his and Zoey’s skin. But the pain for Rythian was distant. The Queen of The End had pinned him to the edge of the island’s cliff, with just enough pressure through a razor-sharp claw around his throat to see Zoey beside him. She dangled half off of the edge, holding on only by the queen’s claws nailing her wrist to the ground, and black shadows pulsing into it. The same shadows wept into the red line across his throat, stinging and trying to dig into the wound. _Now_ he was okay with saying it couldn’t get any worse.

*

He’d told her she shouldn’t go. It was his fight, she shouldn’t get in trouble for his mistakes, and while her magic was good, she wasn’t an archmage like he was, and the Queen of The End was even more powerful. Zoey had split her time between science and magic, which hindered both disciplines. She countered that the Enderbabe had no defense against science (“probably?”), and she’d learned many new tricks as a technomage that even _he_ didn’t know. When he still refused, she brought out her wild card, royal decree of the Mushroom Princess.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not one of your subjects, so it doesn’t apply to me.”

“You helped me with my spirit journey of self-discovery, now I, as the Mushroom Princess, owe you and I aim to repay that debt.” She said with as much flourish and drama as possible.

Rythian groaned. “First of all, it wasn’t a spirit journey. You jumped in a hole and we were chased by monsters for _weeks_. Second of all, life debts are kind of worthless if you die. And I don’t want you to die.”

“And _I_ don’t want _you_ to die, which you very well might, because you’re kind of outnumbered by a few hundred to one.”

“So just you—”

“And Teep. And Fishton, and—”

The groan escalated to a growl. “—Are not going to make much of a difference. Trust me on this. I’m not bringing you or your entire entourage. You’re _all_ staying here.”

*

She didn’t stay. A few hours of preparation later, she easily snuck into the End portal seconds after Rythian had entered for his reckoning, and nearly landed on top of him on an obsidian platform. He would have thrown a fit if they weren’t about to be discovered. Instead, he quickly grabbed her around the waist and used his magic to burrow a makeshift bunker into the side of The End’s central island.

“Gods damn it, Zoey! WHY?!” His whispers were frantic and high-pitched. He wanted to scream, but being heard was not an option.

“Because you’re stubborn, and you underestimate me all the time, and… and…I…” She was turning red all over to match her hair.

“And I want to keep you safe and _alive_! Did you know that the only way home now is through her?! You’re stuck here until either we die, or she dies. And I’m not letting you die!”

Zoey shrugged. “Oh. Well it’s easy, then. I distract the Endermen, you kick the Enderbabe’s butt, and we have an epic high-five over her corpse and go home.”

Rythian raked his hands over his face in frustration, but he had no other choice. Such are the whims of royalty. But at least this one didn’t want to kill him.

The one that did, however, had already sensed the strange surge of magic that had entered her realm. The Ender dragon dropped directly on top of the bunker, flapped her wings at the ground, and blasted the ground open as if the yellow stone were only loose sand. They were exposed.

“Good hustle! Go team!” Zoey slapped Rythian’s hand and took off like a rocket with her jetpack, gaining a shimmering force field around herself. Rythian nearly had a heart attack when the dragon snapped at her, narrowly missing and roaring loud enough to shake the vicinity. The Ender dragon was more than ready to give chase but realized the magic she sensed was not the one flying away, but the Ender mage standing right beneath her.

“_You…_” Her voice buzzed similar to an Enderkin, but still had enough of her mind to remember Rythian’s language. Teeth bared and eyes glared with blinding purple light.

He desperately wished they were anywhere else. Back in the desert, roasting in the sun. The Twilight Forest, being chased down labyrinthine lobbies by murderous minotaurs. Even putting up with Lalna’s insane machinations had to be better than this. Scratch that. Both Lalna and the queen both had it in them to reduce the Brightlands to ashes. And Lalna had actually done it. Twice.

*

Despite his reservations, the battle went rather well, initially. Zoey could fly and the Endermen couldn’t, so all she had to do was herd them away from Rythian and the queen while they fought. She was also in a position to destroy the giant crystals dotting the landscape, giving Rythian an easier time. She’d destroyed most of the pylons with her arm cannon before the Ender queen had caught on and realized that Rythian was the actual distraction. Oh, he’d get his for sure; for betraying her, for trying to escape, for trying to kill her. But the demihuman he’d brought with him… she was familiar…

The dragon bolted towards him, breathing violet fire in his direction, then swerved past him and towards Zoey.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” Rythian flew after her, pelting her with poisoned arrows and volleys of his own enchanted fire. “Zoey, RUN!”

Zoey saw them both racing towards her, smashed the crystal, and jumped from the pylon, just as giant teeth closed around the top and reduced the obsidian and iron cage to crumbs. As she dropped, she fired her jetpack just enough to not crash into the ground, then darted around the pylon and hid in the rubble. Now that she’d been finally noticed, it was time for her to get out of the way. Seeing Rythian grumpy and stabbing Endermen was one thing, but this was scary. He was actually crazy mad at the Enderbabe, who, now that Zoey had seen her, wasn’t really all that much of a babe. Just a flying, purple, people-eater. Maybe if she had a human form so she could make sure…

The dragon’s abrupt stop caused Rythian to smash into her back, where he pulled out Enderbane and jammed it into the base of her left wing joint. Without the nearby protection pylons, the enchanted blade hissed through boiling blood and cracked open scale and bone. The dragon crashed into the ground, screeching. A wing wasn’t enough, though. He pulled the sword from her back and dragged it down her side, trying to reach her heart. His other sword came out; thaumic, stronger than diamond, and enchanted with Aer magic that enabled him to fly. The second sword dug deep between the queen’s ribs, twisting and searching until she thrashed him off. He rolled along the ground for a few feet before stopping himself with his swords embedded into the Endstone.

Rythian looked around; both for cover to duck around, and to make sure Zoey was alright. The Endermen not swarming him meant that they were distracted somewhere else, or even better dead, which hopefully meant Zoey was back to doing her part. It’d have to do. The Ender dragon was enraged and hopefully dying. He hadn’t hit her heart, but she’d been carved up pretty good, and now her real magic would be coming out. Hopefully, that wouldn’t last very long before she bled out. Her wing lay dead at her side and covering the gashes, most of her back and legs were charred, and poisoned arrows embedded deep into her scales. Her eyes were blinding purple lights and fixed on him; the hate was mutual. But the queen was grinning.

“_Now I remember her…_ _The lost heir of the Twilight. They were supposed to all be **dead**_.” She hissed. She sounded so much like her shadowy subjects, it was difficult to understand her. “_I thought you were afraid of the other mortals finding out your secret. Or have you become **her** knight-general instead?_”

Rythian’s only answer was a murderous glare.

Not getting the reaction she wanted, she bellowed loud enough Rythian had to cover his ears. While everything was still shaking, the queen belched clouds of acid all around Rythian as a smoke trap, then teleport-pounced through them like a cat, landing on top of him and grinding him into the ground. They slid to a stop at the edge of the island.

“_I’ll have to keep a better hold of you from now on_.” She panted. “_And I must reward you for bringing me the new ruler of the Twilight Forest._”

Her talons curled inward all around Rythian in a trap, with several points poised over his chest, and one claw curled around his throat. Trying to move, let alone escape, would skewer him.

Zoey saw Rythian pinned to the ground from behind a pile of obsidian and immediately pushed her own heart down from her throat. “Ohgoshohgoshohgosh… I should’ve brought Teep, or at least Johnny Iron. Oh gosh Fishton, help!”

Fishton wheezed frantically from her pocket.

“That’s not helping!”

“_Come out, Twilight heir_!” The queen looked in her general direction and shouted.

“Zoey, don—nnnnhh…” Rythian was cut off by the claws digging deep, punching holes in his thaumic armor until they pressed hard against his ribs.

She checked her weapons. Poison darts? Not strong enough unless she had, like, a thousand. She had twenty. Sword? She didn’t really learn much about advanced combat, and as good as Twilight Steeleaf was, she knew she wasn’t fast enough to kill the dragon before she turned Rythian into swiss cheese. Her personal force field could handle her possibly getting munched, but that wouldn’t help him any. Arm cannon? She only set it to blast things like spiders and regular sized monsters. Unless… She’d need to buy some time.

“Let him go, and I won’t finish you off!” Zoey shouted back, completely unconvincingly.

He looked up and could’ve sworn he saw the dragon’s eyes roll up in her head. ‘Zoey, why are you like this…’ Rythian’s mind was racing as he looked for a way out. His arms were free, but stabbing her in the wrist had an equal chance of releasing him as impaling him. He couldn’t move well enough to launch Enderbane through her chest. And he couldn’t risk leaving Zoey alone with this monster.

“_Tell her to come out, Enderborn, and I won’t simply kill you and use her for my plan, instead_.”

“And what plan is that?” He even hated the deep, smug, buzzing of her voice, but they both needed more time.

The dragon dipped her head low so only he could hear. “_Do you remember our previous… arrangement_?”

Panic and terror set in instantly, and Rythian nearly eviscerated himself trying to escape from her grip. The queen flattened her fist, squashing him to the ground to get him to stop. He’d never told Zoey that he was once enslaved to the Queen of The End. Possessed by twisted magic, haunted by dozens of eyes everywhere he went, a curse rotting him to the core physically and mentally, and compelled to do her bidding. Spying, rightfully distrusted by his friends, scrying the Brightlands’ magic and helping the Endermen, and getting caught in grudges between rulers of dimensions. Then he remembered the “contract” he had with the demigod and ruler of the Brightlands, Ridge. That he wouldn’t even go to The End again or else _everyone_ would suffer. And how much he owed him, Xephos, and Lalna for “saving his life.” More like they dissected and experimented on him, then enslaved him again to a new, only slightly less mad master. The whole thing still gave him nightmares and sickness years later. He almost thought about how it couldn’t get any worse, before coming back and spotting Zoey using one of the nearby crumbled pylons as cover, frantically hacking her arm computer as she came out of hiding. He mentally kicked himself for jinxing it.

“_I’m going to take that as a yes_.” The dragon grinned, teeth the size of his head just inches from his face. “_You and I, again. You keep your miserable life, the Twilight heir keeps her life until I finish using her, and I can leave The End for more than a few minutes at a time and can actually get some work done. Everyone's happy._”

“Got it.” Zoey smacked a panel shut on the back of her metal hand and crossed her fingers on her real one. The lens covering her arm cannon started to pulse and glow as it charged, using up all of the nuclear energy keeping her force field and jetpack operating. She crawled from beneath the rubble, and carefully making her way closer with her hands clasped behind her back and her head down. “Okay! Okay. Jeez. Rythian said you were bossy and mean, but gosh.”

“I swear to the gods, Zoeyyyykkkkk…” Rythian croaked. The dragon slowly ground him into the dirt to shut him up.

The queen eyed them both before setting her sights on Zoey. “_We were just discussing the terms of a truce. You won’t be needing him anymore, will you? He was **my** knight-general before he was yours, after all._”

She tilted her head and took a moment to try to understand the queen’s atrocious pronunciation. “What? General? Nah, we’re just bestest buds. Bros, if you will. He did teach me some magic, but gonna be honest, not the best teacher. At magic, anyway…”

“_Please_ stop talking…” He whined.

Somehow with dragon features, the queen managed to grin at the rising terror in his voice. “_Oh, really…?_”

“No!” Rythian blushed, hating every second.

“Wow, you guys. I’m standing right _HERE_—” Zoey’s arm swung up fast and the cannon fired without her aiming; the massive beam of light’s recoil knocked her on her rear. It caught the queen’s face and neck in white plasma and lightning and was likely visible at the very edges of The End. Rythian barely had enough time to pull himself free as she lost her grip; the dragon’s claws shredded his armor and a good deal of flesh as he wrenched himself out from under her collapsing bulk. The Queen of The End slammed into the ground, her remaining eye’s glow dimming and staring directly at the two of them. They both could only stare back in shock at the downed monster missing most of her head.

“…Told you she wasn’t protected against science.”

“I… You…” Rythian stammered.

“And now, the high-five. UP TOP!” Zoey shouted and held her real hand up for Rythian to slap it.

He held his hands out at her throat, motioning more that he wanted to strangle her for scaring the shit out of him more than once. The urge quickly died as he realized how much everything was bleeding and hurting. “Not now…” Instead, he fell on top of her.

She tried to help his arm across her shoulders to prop him up, but had trouble as killing the dragon used up all of her energy. Her metal arm hung uselessly at her side, her jetpack was dead, and the force-field was gone. All of her technology died for that one shot. “Okay, okay. Fine. Let’s claim her dragon hoard and go home, then. She has a hoard, right? And how do we get back?”

That was a good question. Killing the Ender dragon should have released her magic and the curse barring them and her from leaving The End. Even the Endermen had all completely disappeared. She had to be dead; she was burned, poisoned, stabbed, shot, and had her brains blown out. Neither of them had anything else to work with if she wasn’t. They turned inland, hoping that maybe a portal similar to the one they arrived through would appear somewhere close by. Nothing.

“So… are we stuck here, now?” Zoey frowned.

Rythian closed his eyes and prayed he had one potion left uncrushed after being ground into the dirt. He did and took it with some relief, but not much. “If push comes to shove, I… I can send you back.”

“That’s _totally_ not ominous. Also, you said—”

“I know what I said. But you can’t stay here.”

While they figured out what to do, the Ender dragon’s body behind them blinked out of existence. Rythian stopped cold when he heard that telltale warping noise echoing all around them, then grabbed Zoey close to himself and tried to find a safe place. But there wasn’t anywhere to go. When an enderman teleports, they always reappear somewhere else, usually on top of their target. The noise came again, and Rythian and Zoey disappeared with it. Rythian was bashed across the head by giant claws, knocking him down, and teeth clamped around Zoey’s right side like a bear trap.

*

“_Ennnnderrrrrrbornnnn_!” The queen rasped. What was left of her head drooped upside-down against the ground next to Rythian, and her remaining eye was dimming and flaring purple light erratically. Instead of gore, the same pulsing magic covered where Zoey had shot her, slowly rebuilding skeleton, muscle, and brain.

Rythian was busy seeing stars through blurry vision, only sobering up when he heard Zoey scream and metal twist and crack. ‘Oh gods no. Please no!’ He tried to get up, but his dizziness overcorrected, and he barely caught himself on his hands and knees before faceplanting over the edge into the Void. Seeing the disturbing nothingness over the side did _not_ help. The queen graciously steadied him with her claws.

“How?! How are you not fucking _DEAD_?!” He screamed and pounded his fist into the ground.

Her speech was even worse, slurring everything between wheezes. “_Immorrrtaaaalllll_… _Youuu… are powerful now… more than I could have hhhhoped… but ifff you won’t sssszubmit… I’ll ussszzze… the princzzcessszzzz!_”

Rythian looked around for Zoey and found her clawing at the ground with her remaining hand, trying to crawl back onto the island. The dragon had mangled her prosthetic arm and jetpack, dangling her half over the side. The black shadow he recognized as what once possessed him ages ago, was now weaving its way around her, looking for a way in.

“Rythian!” Zoey shouted. The more she inched her way forward to get away from the edge, the more the shadow wisps welcomed her.

The Queen of The End couldn’t have her. He couldn’t risk Ridge or the others’ wrath coming down on her for this, either. Rythian had just barely survived being a host to the queen’s parasite the first time, and he knew she was going to pursue him for as long as either of them lived. But he didn’t know the queen was actually _immortal_. He couldn’t let her do that to Zoey; she’d already been through so much, and it would probably break her to have the queen imposing her own memories and will over what she only recently regained.

“STOP! Stop… I submit.” His head dropped.

“Rythian, don’t! I’m sorry! I should have—”

“_And I… acccczzzept_…” The queen quickly released her hold on Zoey, and the ender and shadow magic both swarmed him. This time, the Ender dragon’s death seemed to be a little more final as she let go of her form; only a large pile of black ash remained.

The first time he was transformed by the Queen of the End, she used one of her own subjects to meld small pieces of her power to him, sealing it all inside of him with an enderpearl. Knowing he was far stronger this time and giving himself willingly, she didn’t need to use a proxy, or worry about the curse that limited their ender magic. Unfortunately for Rythian, that meant that the traumatic first time of being broken down into magical energy and reformed was barely a tickle compared to having an ancient, immortal being, mad with destructive power clawing her way through his mind and body.

Zoey tried to make her way over to him now that the queen had lost interest in her, only to be struck by a lash of the bright ender magic and slapped away from them. This was the opposite of what was supposed to happen! She’d done everything she was supposed to do! She helped Rythian! She got rid of the Endermen! She destroyed the crystals! She even took the final shot and had slain the dragon! But the dragon cheated! And Rythian warned her. And now the Enderbabe was going to turn him into an enderman…

“Oh my gosh! Rythian! What do I do?!” She shouted over him and tried to reach him again. She got as far as grabbing for what looked like his shoulder before it became a black ribbon and wrapped around her wrist.

“_Ennnnderrrrrrbaaaaaannnne!_” He sounded less like himself and more like a screechy enderman being doused with water. It was all he could get out before the black magic covered his face and choked off his screaming.

The faint wisps that threatened and picked at her were now huge ribbons and disintegrating Rythian. Zoey desperately wanted to cover her ears or get away from the inhuman noise, but she only had one hand and couldn’t bear to leave him alone. The shadow magic dissolved him, which then combined with the purple End magic and reformed him more as a fuzzy silhouette.

“Your sword! It was under the dragon when she died the first time! But she poofed us and I don’t know where we are!” They were still at the edge of the island, but _which_ edge? The entire place looked the same except for the towers, which were all destroyed… save for the one they stood under. Zoey shouted and tried to wrench her hand away. “I missed one?! No no no no no no NO! Let me go! I’m not going to let Rythian turn into a monster because I messed up!”

“We are not _monsters_!” The queen screamed, Rythian’s voice joining hers. “We will _all_ be free from death! We will have our world back!”

“And now an evil monologue! And he calls me crazy!” Zoey looked around for anything she could use. Her technology was all shattered, she couldn’t use her sword on him, but she did have a little magic. She couldn’t conjure the powerful Ender magic that Rythian used, but she remembered that sometimes things burst into flames around her, and being from the super magical Twilight Forest had to count for _something_. ‘Oh please oh please… Rythian, I’m so sorry but it probably won’t hurt half as much as whatever the butts that just was!’

The Twilight mage scrunched her face and concentrated really hard on making those fires happen. She felt her face getting hot, but not much else. ‘Come on, come on!’ She clenched her hand into a fist and thought about melting the stupid Enderbabe’s face off. If she had a face other than the one she already melted. That would show her. The black magic actually let go of Zoey’s arm and started waving frantically in the air, the ribbons suddenly swallowed up by bright flames. Rythian collapsed to the ground into a cloud of black smoke.

‘I did it!’ “I’ll be back, Rythian! I swear!” She didn’t know if he had heard her as she sprinted away, but she had to go find Enderbane. When he first showed it to her, he said it wouldn’t hurt her. But it burned him just holding it. He used it to kill Endermen. “Stab the Enderbabe. Not Rythian. Don’t stab Rythian. Even if he’s a really grumpy, brainwashed enderman.” She pushed that thought way down.

As she ran up towards the center of the island, she spotted a large fountain made of bedrock at the highest point. “Is that the portal? _Now_ it shows up! But I can’t just leave Rythian here. And what do I do if he takes her home and she starts destroying everything? I wonder if the others would help me… us. Lalna’s pretty strong at magic. And he could put a force field around where the portal comes out! But he’s a jerk and would probably blow up the world again trying to get rid of her! Augh!”

Leaning over the side, the fountain was surreal; it was filled with some kind of black liquid and reflected thousands of stars that didn’t match the ones in the sky. Did it really lead back to the Brightlands? She almost lost herself staring at it, but shook herself out of it and tried to decide which way to go. There wasn’t enough time for her to cover the entire outside edge of the island. “Where’s where we fought? Which post was it at? Think, think, think!”

*

The fires that Zoey had started quickly died, leaving Rythian face down on the ground, smoking.

‘_Get up! Go after her!_’

‘_Can we just lay here a few minutes? Just five minutes. She can’t escape in five minutes. Unless our ‘death’ was enough to break the spell preventing her from leaving. Fuck. No. She wouldn’t leave me here._’

Despite the urgency of the situation, Rythian couldn’t move even if he had wanted to (which he didn’t). Things easily could have gone much worse, but this was maybe number three on the list of worst-case scenarios. Everything burned like lightning crawling all over and inside of him. Was that from being cursed again, being fused with a completely biologically-incompatible, magical, extra-dimensional demigoddess, or just being set on fire? Even thinking hurt. But he had to move. Just make sure Zoey’s okay. Send her back home. For good, this time. Maybe he could still pull this off. Just as long as nobody snitched. …Would Zoey tell on him? …If she went to go get _help_. Fuck. Okay. That can’t happen. Have to move now.

He scanned his body first. A few, deep breaths that smelled like an old, musty basement and char. The deathly silence of The End and the faint whoosh of air being sucked into the Void below him. He tasted blood… probably a bitten tongue, hopefully not internal bleeding, if he still had blood and wasn’t a disembodied shadow monster now. Judging by the blinding pain everywhere else, his body was probably okay, if not scattered into a million pieces all tenuously connected by spiderwebs. If he was numb, that meant shock, and _that_ would be bad. His acid burns, her fire burns, his bruised ribs, her stab wounds (_there’s_ the internal bleeding), his near impalement on her claws, her… broken back? That’s not right. A broken wing. Ah. A blinding headache filled with bouts of anger, terror, and flashes of each other’s memories that the other didn’t recognize. Nausea and choking on his own tongue, except that it wasn’t _his_ tongue. Because _human_ tongues fit in _human_ mouths, godsdamnit.

He was afraid to open his eyes. Gods, the worst part of the curse was that the queen took away his normal _human_ eyes and gave him new ones with the ability to see _things_. Things he really didn’t want to see. Things like the leylines the Endermen used to redirect and siphon the other realms’ mana. The innate magic in others. And _her_. Always being watched, to make sure he was doing his job and couldn’t run away. But surely she wouldn’t need to watch herself, so that was something. A few more deep breaths, and he forced his eyes open.

Anemic veins of violet light pulsed under his clawed and scaled hand (‘oh gods, my hands…’), and crawled along the yellow Endstone. The End’s leylines, bleeding out into the Void. He could see even more, this time. Every blade of grass, every flower, every home, every tower, a million ghosts overlaid on top of the derelict island and beyond. An endless kingdom, if they weren’t all cursed and crumbling into the darkness below. There was still magic left in The End, but not enough to save the place. Just enough to keep her alive until they finished their task of siphoning enough magic from the other realms. The Brightlands. They knew the demigod and king, Ridge, would never help them; they’d both already been condemned. Fuck Ridge. Just take it all. But the Twilight Forest was almost overflowing with magic. Zoey would help him...

They groaned weakly (wincing when he sounded like an Enderman) and tried to move enough to get up. It took several tries, but at least they were upright. If they’d known they were going to merge with each other, they wouldn’t have kicked each other’s ass so badly. He didn’t really want to know what was going on physically, as he remembered the hundred-eyed shade of her that hung around just at the edge of his peripheral vision, and the shadow abomination he had nearly been transformed into against his will, the first two times. But he had to check himself for the exact damage. Not that they could do anything about it; they weren’t shapeshifters and he didn’t have anything left to heal with.

As she always did to terrorize him, glowing purple Ender eyes opened all around him and made him shrink in on himself. So much for not watching herself. They saw a creature that neither of them had anticipated, recognized, or wanted; their various combined magics barely under either of their control. Torn, shadow-stained human flesh, and monstrous, light-absorbing dragon scales. Sharp, bright ender sparks, and soft, foggy shadows billowing around them. Seeping red blood and billowing black wisps leaking from their side, back, and chest. Two plus too many eyes. One dim blue, the dozens of others all bright purple.

‘**_I_**_ am still human. **I **am Rythian. **I** am in there, somewhere. Gods help me, you will **pay** for this…_’ Rythian was nearly blind with rage.

‘_Only after you have saved our people._’ The queen thought grimly.

Rythian tried to ignore the thoughts that he knew he didn’t create, forcing the queen (and her eyes) down to angry whispers. He had to work fast before her mind overwhelmed his; he knew the queen was crazier than Zoey at her worst and a thousand times more dangerous, even after that arm cannon business a short while ago. He hated that both of them were able to hide from him the sheer power they had, and now they both held those powers over him in very different ways.

He scanned the barren landscape and found that he could see Zoey’s magic far across the island. She was bright red like a flame. His beacon. Please let her have found Enderbane…

*

The one pylon on the opposite side of the island looked more familiar in that the obsidian top was gone, not just the crystal and cage. It was a long run, and Zoey wished her jetpack worked even a little bit for this real emergency. Not that Rythian about to be nommed or flattened or skewered wasn’t a real emergency.

She followed the black blood, scorch marks, and fighting craters to the edge of the island, and at the bottom of the Ender dragon’s first death crater, were two swords. Rythian’s Aer sword, and Enderbane.

“Oh thank goodness.” She jumped into the crater and grabbed the enchanted Aer sword first, setting it in her back scabbard with her Steeleaf sword. She hesitated at Enderbane; the other was a normal sword, but Rythian usually clutched this thing close wherever he went, even though she could tell it was hurting him. She poked it, picked it up, and turned it over in examination. It was pretty, for a short-sword, anyway. The blade’s metal was the same color as Rythian’s ender magic and had circular ‘hooks’ cut out of it. Some runes she couldn’t read, silver edges, and the handle was plain leather. No pain.

Wishing that teleporting didn’t make that stupid noise, Rythian appeared near her, outside of the crater. He was thankful that in this form, teleporting didn’t take a toll on his body; everything hurt enough as it was. “_Zzzzooooeeey_…” He rasped.

“Rythian! Thank goodness you’re not dead! I found—!” She turned around and couldn’t help but yelp and stumble back several steps.

She thought that she could handle him being turned into a creepy enderman, but she wasn’t even sure what was _this_ whole mess even was. Only that it sort of had Rythian’s voice and shape, and the two really tired, glowing eyes at face level were definitely his. She had had guesses about what was under his mask, and okay, _one_ of them was ‘dozens of razor-sharp teeth in a super creepy mouth,’ but seeing it in person was another story. The horns, scales, wings, claws, and _extra eyes_ hadn’t even crossed her mind. But it was the Enderbabe-slash-dragon-thing that had transformed him, and not an enderman, so it kind of made sense? It would’ve been nice if he’d at least given her a crash course on End magic, and not just ‘good’ magics. No… no, even with her being half Rythian, the ‘Enderbabe’ was still not a babe. Darn.

Zoey’s reaction might as well have been to run Enderbane through his heart right then and there. Without thinking, he teleported beside her, grabbing her broken prosthetic arm. His hand clenched hard enough they could hear the already shredded metal creaking. Even in this weird form, she was able to recognize that same look of barely contained anger and hurt as when he found out about B.A.R.R.Y, the experiments, the spy network, that monitor…

“R- Rythian? I found- I found your swords! But, I don’t know what to do! I can’t…” She tried to ignore his hand on her; she couldn’t feel it and was thankful for that. ‘Be cool, he’s super scared and hurt, and totally not going to freak out, rip your arm off, and suck out your soul…’

Rythian forced himself to slowly enunciate to get around his ‘new’ voice and mouth slurring and buzzing his words. “_It’s… okay. I said I would send you back. This… is how you get back._” He released his grip on her and shrank back a step.

“I think I found the portal, though! It’s in between all the crystal towers. I don’t really know if it goes home, though. It doesn’t look anything like the stronghold portal to get here. But once we’re home, we can focus on … um… how to change you back?”

“_Okay._” He said softly, too exhausted to argue.

“Okay, cool! I promise I’ll fix this!” She hesitated again but wrapped her arm around him and pressed close to him in a hug. She was relieved to find that the shadow and fog were just layers and there was still a corporeal body in there somewhere. He was larger and admittedly much scarier. But he was still warm-blooded, and his scales were smooth, and not clammy like a lizard or something. Dragons are lizards, right? She couldn’t help but try to look around in the fog, giggle a little bit, and feel him up. “It’s really dark in here. Also…umm, where are your clothes?”

“_Zzzoey. You set me on **fire**_.” Rythian sighed, choosing not to mention that she was still holding Enderbane, and the flat of the blade was leaving a really painful burn across his back. But at least she wasn’t running in terror. She still wanted to be near and touch him. That made up for it.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

“_Let’s just go._” Not wanting to end the embrace, he warped them both directly to where she said the fountain was. He willed himself to let go of her and leaned over the side.

The other times he’d moved between the Brightlands and The End, he’d used his own enderpearl that the queen had implanted in him, so this wasn’t familiar. He knew that it was supposed to exist, but nothing else. Why didn’t it look like the stronghold’s portal on the other side? The frame was made of bedrock. How was he supposed to destroy this? As soon as he finished the thought, he realized his mistake. The queen’s eyes all opened, and lightning started to strike around his mind.

“Uhhh, Rythian?!” Zoey asked, fear welling up in her voice. Eyes appeared all around them and were glaring, and Rythian’s face scrunched up in concentration, grit teeth, and his hands clutching his head.

He couldn’t concentrate enough to fix his speech and keep the queen at bay at the same time. “_Ssss_hit. _Zzzzoeeey_, _lissssten_ carefully. _Pleazzzze_! One. DO NOT TELL ANYONE. They’ll tell _Rrridge_. And then he’ll _mmmake_ it _inffffinitely_ _worzzzze_. Two. Get _Teeeeep_. Go to the Twilight _Ffforrrezzzt_. _F-ffind_ help _tthherrrre_.”

“Wow, I barely understood any of that.” She laughed weakly.

His enderkin screech in response was evenly spaced between ‘losing my grip on humanity here’ and ‘for fuck’s sake,’ as his claws raked through his already mussed hair.

“Okay, okay! Keep it secret, keep it safe. And… go get help in the forest? Wait! You’re not coming?! You can’t stay here by yourself! I pushed all the Endermen into the Void and you’ll just be here, all alone and bored to death!”

“_YOU WHAT?!_” Rythian shouted, though it came out slightly more high-pitched and feminine.

“Rythiannnn…” She inched away from him.

“_I see now that I can’t leave you two alone._” Rythian and the queen hissed together.

The queen had Rythian grab Zoey around her waist, carefully avoiding that damnable sword, and wave his other hand at the center post of the fountain. A black egg with glowing purple spots and sparks materialized.

“_No!_” Rythian screamed and tried to get control back. The struggling made him move as if he were a puppet on strings.

“Leave him alone!” Zoey tried to avoid Rythian by swinging Enderbane at the eyes around them instead, but the blade passed through them as if they were made of the fog.

“_You two are going to be a constant nuisance. Lovely._” The queen growled, tossing Zoey and Enderbane forcefully into the portal. Rythian only regained control in time to hear her voice calling out for him as the portal’s shadowy liquid swallowed her. He fell to his knees and stared into the sparkling blackness.

“_Enderborn. Take the egg to the Twilight Forest and guard it there. And you will gather and rebuild the army she destroyed._” It felt as if claws were digging at the back of his neck and into his chest.

“_You do realize you’re stuck with **me** now, right? I’m going to do whatever it takes to get rid of you, even if it **kills** us. You’re not getting your army, you won’t revive this dead world, and I won’t let you **live**._” He growled.

The dozens of eyes all rolled upward. “_I broke you once; it won’t be difficult to do it again. And you’ll do as I command because of that brain-addled creature you’re infatuated with._”

“_You’ve already underestimated her once, and you’re already doing it again. Hell, even I still do it. You’re going to regret your entire stupid plan. AGAIN. And now that she’s safe on the other side, I can do **this**._” His claws dug into the rim of the fountain and left tiny cracks.

The center of the island began to rumble violently, the Endstone all around them crackling and crumbling underfoot. The queen immediately tried to stop him, but it was too late. Bright purple ribbons of ender magic erupted around the fountain portal, hooking over the sides and wrapping around the queen’s egg. Both blinked out of existence without a trace.

“_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!_” The queen screeched, making Rythian cough. “_WHERE DID IT GO?!_”

Rythian couldn’t help but wince. “_If I knew that, you wouldn’t be asking me. It could have fallen into the Void for all I know. I do know that now we’re stuck here._”

“_Until the Twilight Heir returns to try and save you. And then I’ll punish you both!_”

“_Time enough for me to think about how to get rid of you._” He eased himself down to sit where the portal was and went into a meditative state. All of his energy went towards pushing the queen to the back of his mind, and having a plan ready for when Zoey came back…

**Author's Note:**

> On Rythian's 'previous arrangement': I wrote a fic years prior called Science to Magic when Blackrock was still new, and no one knew any of Rythian's secrets yet. Basically Rythian was tricked into entering a contract with the Queen of The End, in which she melded him with an Enderman and was forcing him to open a portal so she and her army could divert The Brightlands' magic towards The End to 'fix' it. May or may not post it later.


End file.
